The God of Mischief in Glory - Why I Love Parking Garages

A long overdue post, I shot these images of Thalie Boucher wearing this stunning costume by Sara Wilkinson, of Loki, the God of Mischief, from the Marvel Comics movie series, way back in November, after Hal-Con. Sadly, I got tied up in work in December at my part time job and the holiday and never got around to posting this on here.

So a bit of history, I know Sara from college and she is a wonderful fashion and costume designer, this Loki costume being her latest labour of love I was more then happy to help document it. The model, Thalie, was more then a perfect fit for the look and feel of the character she is cosplaying here. So the hard part was trying to find a good location to match this incredible work. I decided I wanted an industrial location, with some shelter (cause it was very cold out) and I'm a huge fan of one of the parking garages here in town for just that look. I've used this location before, with mixed results in lighting, but now I have a good grasp on those issues. I knew I wanted strong shadows, and some colour splash in the background to help add to the mood. when I think Loki, I think green, so green became that colour gel to use. Also she needed some close ups and well lit details for her portfolio, so I took some without the modelled lighting and colours as well. I didn't use too many tricks in this setup, it was basically two lights, one in the background and one main front flash with a softbox. All and all it was very successful.

So now on to the images.

On a technical side there was little editing, just a few background adjustments removing signs and the parking lot lines and so on.

-Larry M. Holder

Shooting Iron Man Once More!

A few weeks before Harbour Con-Fusion 2013 and just after Animaritime 2013 I did a second commissioned shoot with Phil Vautour, the Saint John Iron-Bat. Continuing off my experience from the premier of the suit  at the Iron Man 3 opening and then East Coast Comic Expo, we came into the new shoot loaded with neat ideas for images. Phil had some images in particular we wanted to achieve, most were based off cover art and other successful cosplay images around the net. We shot at the Saint John Art Centre, which had offered me space before when I was working on the calendar for Harbour Con-Fusion, sadly those shots were not up to par that time. This time I was highly successful in capturing pretty much exactly what we hoped.

Tales of Suspense

This was a suggestion I had when researching Iron Man images. We would attempt to make an update of the Tales of Suspense comic cover in Iron Man was first brought to life.

This required the making of 4 images of the suiting process, because of certain differences in the construction of the pieces of the suit, we had to change it up a bit, but the end result was fantastic. Here is the edited collection of images arranged on the page to match the comic.

After I had that laid out, I added in the graphics. Some cases I used elements from the original cover, and some I updated to more modern Marvel presentation. 

I still think it's one of my most successful images to date since I started cosplay photography. But wait it's not done. Phil had an idea too, based off one of Adi Granov's Extremis covers.

Extremis

We needed a model to play Maya Hansen, so I was lucky to get a good friend and one of the most professional models I have had the benefit of working with, Brandi Gray. There was no way to make this absolutely 1:1 perfect due to height and suit differences and the lack of a room like the one in the picture. Through painstaking hand compositing and piecing photographic plate elements together, I came out with this interpretation. 

It's pretty darn close and everyone was thrilled with the results in the end. From there we did some other original poses and images including a sequence of Iron Man ironing, just for fun. Here are the rest of the images including an original cover I designed.

All and all it was a highly enjoyable experience with two of the best professionals in this region. We had a goal in mind and met it head on and nailed it. Hopefully all my commission jobs progress like this. I've had one since this point and it was fantastic as well. That person I first met at my next post to go up, Harbour Con-Fusion. Only a few posts away from being caught up and then it should be very close to Hal-Con time. Till next post.

-Larry M. Holder 

Sara Wilkinson - Harley Quinn (Arkham Style)

This was a personal commission shoot I for Sara Wilkinson. Sara has shot with me a few times and is a talented designer both in cosplay and fashion. Her Harley Quinn cosplay gave me a great opportunity to try out a wicked location inside an underground parking garage. Pretty standard setup for flash, similar to my booth. I had a few exposer issues getting the light exactly how I wanted, but I think it looks fantastic. This was shot in early June, I would use this location at Animaritime 2013 at a later date in a different section of the garage.

- Larry M. Holder